Vault of the Ages

by Poul Anderson

“But no one can tell how near, eh?” John knocked out his pipe. A tiny coal glowed in the ashes for a moment and then went out like a closing eye. “I thought so. You see, Carl, it isn’t at all sure that the Lann will come out of the woods just hereabouts, or if they do that it will be a force too big for us to handle, or even if it’s their whole army that it will waste time attacking the gathered warriors of this neighborhood. So all in all, we men of this district voted to stay at home and defend our own hearth-fires.”

  “It was your right under the law,” admitted Carl gloomily, “but a divided tribe is a weak tribe.”

  He sat for a while in a stillness broken only by the crackling of the fire and the whisper of the loom where John’s wife worked. Somewhere outside, a wild dog howled, and Bull stirred where he lay on a deerskin and snarled an answer.

  “It isn’t so bad,” said John kindly. “We’ll win out. There may not even be a war.” He smiled. “Besides, lad, I don’t think you’re here as Ralph’s messenger to us border men.”

  “No,” said Carl, brightening in spite of himself. “I’m really heading north to the City.”

  “The City!” whispered Owl, and a stir of awe ran about the room. John’s eyes narrowed, Tom leaned forward with his thin, sharp face drawn tight, Am and Samwell looked at each other, and the woman at the loom stopped her weaving for a startled instant.

  “It isn’t far from here, is it?” asked Carl.

  “Only about a day’s ride,” said Tom slowly. “But none of us have ever been there. It’s taboo.”

  “Not completely,” Carl told him. “The Chief of a tribe can send men to bargain with the witch-men smiths there. That’s me.”

  “You’re after iron weapons, I suppose?”

  “Yes. Every Dalesman has his own war tools, of course, but we need things like catapults and horse armor to fight the Lann. I’m supposed to get them from the smiths in return for the usual payment—meat, salt, cloth, furs, you know.”

  A wild dog howled again, closer this time. The woods were full of such packs, descendants, it was said, of tame animals which had run loose when the Doom scattered men. They were among the most dangerous beasts these days. Arn grunted, took a brand from the fire for light, and went out with Sam-well to check the sheepfold.

  Carl sat letting his mind run over what he knew of the City. He had never been there, and his being sent on this errand was a proud sign that the son of the Chief was becoming a man. Once there stood towns and villages even in this region of the Allegheny Mountains. They had been abandoned during the Doom or shortly thereafter and had moldered to ruin. After early smiths had plundered all the metal in them, they had been left for the wind and the forests to bury, and today their fragments, thought to be haunted, were left alone by the tribes. As the other ancient metal—from houses, rusted machines, and the mysterious old railroad tracks—was used up, men looked toward the vaster ruins of the old cities.

  But by that time, taboos had grown up. Early explorers venturing into some of the empty metropolises —those which had been wrecked and burned by the terrible fury from the air which was the Doom—had often died of lingering sickness, and many thought that the “glowing death” was the sign of godly anger. So today the ruins, like other ancient works, were forbidden to tribesmen.

  Still, metal was needed. A hundred years, or perhaps two hundred, after the Doom, little groups of outcasts had drifted into the cities and lived there. Not belonging to any of the great tribes, they had not been kept from going; but today they were shunned and feared as witch-men, in spite of being usually a timid and unwarlike folk. It was they who salvaged steel and copper from the huge ruined buildings, sometimes forging it themselves into tools and weapons, sometimes selling the metal as it was.

  Tribesmen were allowed to come and buy from them, providing that afterward a Doctor said magic over the things to take the curse off.

  In all this region, only one such city remained—the City. No one remembered its name today. It lay some distance north of the Dalesmen’s territory, screened by the hills and forests which reached farther than anyone had ever traveled. Carl had long been eager to visit it, but this was the first time Ralph had allowed him.

  He spoke again, his words seeming loud in the quietness:

  “I need a guide. Will anyone come with me?”

  John shook his head. “The City is a bad place.”

  “I do not think so,” said Carl. “It was a great and glorious world before the Doom smashed everything. The ancient people were wiser men than we. Why should their works be evil?”

  It was a new thought, and they sat turning it carefully over in their minds. “Taboo,” said John at last.

  “I have leave to go there,” answered Carl.

  Tom leaned forward, his eyes alight, shivering a little. “Yes—Father, I can guide him!” he said.

  “You?”

  “And I,” said Owl. “It’s a shame, our living a day’s ride from the City and never having seen it.”

  “We’ll be back in two days,” cried Tom.

  “The Lann—” muttered John.

  “You said they were nowhere near,” grinned Owl. “But—”

  “It is the tribe which asks you,” said Carl urgently. “All the Dalesmen need those weapons.”

  John argued for a long time, but when Carl went to bed he knew he had won.

  * * *

  They were up with sunrise, Owl groaning and complaining at the earliness of it. “He’s like that,” smiled Tom. “He won’t be really awake till after breakfast.”

  Carl rubbed his eyes, yawning. “I know how he feels.”

  They went out in a cool gray mist and helped with the morning’s work. When they came back to the house, leading saddled horses, breakfast was waiting, and Carl ate as hungrily as his new friends.

  John’s wife, Mary, hovered over the boys. “Be careful,” she whispered. “Be careful, Tom, Jim, and—oh, come back to us!”

  “Yes,” rumbled John in his beard. “I shouldn’t let you go, but—the gods go with you.” His rough hand brushed their shoulders and he turned away, blinking.

  The three were too eager to be off to pay much attention.

  It seemed a long time to Carl before he was riding into the woods, but the mist was still not quite off the ground and dew was shining in the grass.

  “I know the way,” said Tom, “even if I’ve never been there myself. We follow this trail till we get to a brook, then it’s due north across country to one of the old roads, and that’ll take us straight in.”

  “If it’s that easy,” said Carl, “I don’t need a guide.”

  “Oh, yes, you do,” said Owl. “At least, I need the trip.”

  They rode single file down a narrow path. Before long, the forest had closed in on them, brush and fern and high, sun-dappled trees, a red squirrel streaking up a mossy trunk, chatter of birds and murmur of running water—but they were alone, there were no others anywhere, and the great stillness lay like a cloak over all the lesser noises. Carl relaxed in the saddle, listening with half an ear to the excited talk of Tom and Owl, aware of the plod of hoofs and the squeak of leather and the jingle of metal, his nostrils sensing a thousand smells of green growing life. It was a good land here, a broad, fair land of green fields and tall forests and strong people—and by all the gods, the Dalesmen meant to keep it!

  “I know why Father let us go with you,” said Tom. “He is upset about our neighborhood no sending men to Dalestown. He thinks it’s still the wisest thing we’re doing, but he doesn’t really like it.”

  “Nobody likes war,” said Carl shortly.

  “I think the Lann must,” said Owl. “Otherwise, why are they making it against us? We never John’s sons had taken along, and then mounted again and rode farther.”

  The attack came near midafternoon. Carl was riding in the lead, pushing a way through a dense part of the forest, lost in his own thoughts. Their own passage was so noisy that the boys did not hear anything else, and the sudden
yell came like a thunderbolt.

  Carl whipped out his sword and dug heels into his pony’s ribs in one unthinking motion. The arrow hummed past his cheek and stuck into a tree. He saw the man who rose out of ambush before him and hewed wildly even as the stranger’s ax chopped at his leg.

  Metal clanged on metal, flaming in a single long sunbeam. The man yelled again, and others came out of the brush and dropped from the limbs of trees. Carl reined in his horse, it reared back and its hoofs slashed at the first attacker. He stumbled backward to escape, and Carl bent low in the saddle and burst into a gallop.

  “This way!” he yelled. “This way, after me! We’ve got to get clear! It’s the Lann!”

  Chapter 2

  THE LOST CITY

  Branches whipped across his face, and Carl flung up an arm to shield his eyes. Forward—a wild scrambling as the Lann warriors broke before his charge —out and away! He burst from the woods into the long grass of a sunlit meadow. Two arrows whistled after him; one grazed his neck, humming like an angry bee. Turning in the saddle, he saw Tom and Owl riding close behind him and the enemy running into the open.

  A horseman topped the crest of the hill to his right, light flashing off his iron helmet. If they had cavalry to pursue—Carl set his teeth and clucked to his pony. Fast, fast—the way back was cut off, they had to go forward.

  Up a long slope, down into a gulch below, with the horses supping and stumbling on loose earth, around a thicket and through a brier-patch that clawed at living flesh. Carl risked another glance behind and saw half a dozen armed men on the small shaggy horses of the north, galloping in an easy chase. Their mounts were fresh, thought the boy; they need only run down their wearied prey and after that, the end—or capture, which could be worse than death.

  The long-legged steeds of John’s sons drew up on either side of Carl. Tom was bent low, his face white and set; Owl was riding easily, his lips even now curled in a half-smile. Leaning over, the younger boy shouted to Carl, “Looks like we’ll get there sooner than we thought!”

  “The City?” cried his brother.

  “Where else?” panted Carl. “Maybe the witches will help us.”

  It was a forlorn hope. The smith-folk knew they existed only on sufferance and on the tribesmen’s unwillingness to enter the Cities, so they would never risk the anger of anyone by mixing into the quarrels of others. But—what else was there for the hunted to do?

  Ride, ride, ride! The wind roared in Carl’s ears, whipping his hair and cloak behind him, the land seemed to blur past, the fury of speed stung his eyes with tears. Already his horse was breathing heavily, sweating and foaming. How much longer could it go on?

  The Lann were out of sight behind the rolling hills, but they would follow. Even as he guided his mount over the rough ground and wondered how long he would still be alive, Carl was thinking back over what he had seen. Except for one or two prisoners taken in border skirmishes, he had never met a Lann warrior before, and the image of his pursuers was sharp in his mind.

  The northerners were of the same race as the Dalesmen and the other Allegheny tribes, though a life of hardships had made them a little shorter and stockier; and their language was almost the same, easily understood. Even their clothing was much like that of the Dales, with more fur and leather used. But the fighting men all seemed to have breastplates of toughened hide painted in harsh colors, their swords were often curved instead of straight, and they used a shorter, heavier bow. It was said that they fought in a tighter and better arranged formation than the Dalesmen, who were peaceful folk and had no real art of war. Faintly to Carl’s ears, above the rush of wind and murmur of grass and thudding of hoofs, there came the sound of a blown horn, wailing and hooting between the empty hills. A signal. Were the Lann calling to others? Would there be a whole army chasing three hapless boys? A gulp of despair rose in Carl’s throat. He choked it down and urged his pony to another effort.

  Up a slanting, crumbling bluff. From its heights, Carl saw the enemy, more of them now, perhaps twenty. They had been joined by others, and where in all the reaching world was there shelter from them?

  As he plunged down the hill beyond, Carl saw a dull, white gleam through a screen of trees. A river—no, it was no stream, no trail—nothing! Straight as a hurled spear it ran northward, and Tom let out a yell as he saw it.

  “The road!” he shouted. “The road to the City!”

  Of course, thought Carl. He had seen the broken remnants of ancient highways, split by the ages, most of the blocks taken away by men for building material.

  This one had not been disturbed, and it ran toward their goal.

  They came out on the road and its hard surface rang hollowly under the hoofs. “Ride on it!” said Owl. “It’s a fast and easy way—”

  “Also for the Lann,” said Tom bleakly. “But come.”

  The frost and creeping roots of centuries had been cruel to the highway, Carl saw. Its great stony sections lay riven and cracked, tilted at crazy angles and often overgrown with brush. But still it was there, and it was straight and almost level. Ride, ride, ride!

  As they sped on their way, he noticed low grassy mounds on either side of the road. Under those, he knew, were buried the decayed ruins of ancient houses. Bold men sometimes defied taboo and dug about in such hills, finding the broken pieces of things incomprehensible to them. Even now, racing for his life, Carl could not help a shudder, and from the corner of an eye he saw Tom fingering a lucky charm about his neck.

  The mounds grew larger and closer together as the boys galloped north. Here and there a shattered fragment of worked stone, a few bricks, or a gleaming splinter of glass thrust out of the green overgrowth. The drumbeats of the hoofs rolled and echoed between those solemnly looming graves as if the dead woke up and cried in protest.

  “The Lann—coming—”

  Turning at Owl’s voice, Carl saw the tiny figures of the enemy horsemen far behind, galloping down the highway with the westering sun flashing off their spears and helmets. Then Tom’s cry jerked his head forward again.

  “The City!”

  They were riding between two high mounds which overshadowed the road and blocked off the

  view ahead. As they burst out from between these, their goal lay open to them.

  The City—the ancient City!

  Even then, Carl felt the awe and the sadness which lay over that dead titan. It sprawled farther away on every side than he could see, and it was toppled to ruin and waste. The buildings on this edge were little more than heaps of brick covered with vines and bush and young trees, and here and there a wall still stood erect under the creepers. The forest had crept in, blanketing the great old works in green, slowly and patiently gnawing them down; and wind and rain and frost had over the centuries brought them toppling; and wild beasts laired in the wreck and prowled the hollow streets.

  But far, far down, the towers, which had been the City’s pride, gleamed in the long, low sunrays. Even from this distance, Carl could see that they were gutted. Many of the walls had fallen, leaving a rusted steel skeleton; the windows were empty and the blowing air wandered between dusty rooms—yet they stood, tall and straight against the evening sky, straining heavenward like the great dead men who had wrought them, and Carl knew that he was entering the ruin of a dream.

  “The Lann—Tom, Carl, look behind! The Lann!”

  They had reined in their horses between the two sentinel mounds and were milling in confusion. Their shouts drifted faintly down the sunset breeze to the boys sitting on their horses under the somber walls of a roofless building.

  “Taboo!” shouted Owl gleefully. “The old Cities are forbidden to them too. They don’t dare enter!”

  Carl drew a long, shuddering breath, and it was as if life and hope flowed back into him with it. He laughed aloud, there in the stillness of the lost city.

  “But—” Tom looked nervously around him. “We’re breaking the taboo ourselves.”

  Purpose returned to Carl. He
straightened his weary shoulders and looked boldly ahead.

  “What have we to lose?” he asked. “Come on, let’s find the witches.”

  The tired, sweating horses walked slowly down a street which was overgrown with grass and creepers. The echoes rang loud in that great stillness. A family of swallows dipped and wheeled overhead, swift and lovely against the golden sunset sky. This could not be such a terrible place, thought Carl.

  It had long been his idea that the tribes and the Doctors were wrong in forbidding the ancient works. Perhaps they had, as was said, brought the Doom on mankind—but they had so much power for good in them that he felt they could start today’s unchanging life back upward toward the heights the ancestors had reached. Now, as he rode through the shadows and the tall, sad remnants, the belief was strengthened in him.

  “Halt! Halt!”

  The voice was shrill in Carl’s ears. He clapped one hand to his sword and reined in before the score of men who had come from around a wall and stood barring the road. The witch-folk!

  They did not seem like the uncanny beings of whispered midnight stories. They were men even as those in the Dales—rather small and skinny men too, who handled their weapons awkwardly and seemed as shy as Tom and Owl had suddenly become. Most of them were very dark-skinned. They must have blood of the black tribes which lived in the southlands, as well as the white of the Alleghenys and the north. Unlike the other tribes, they wore tunics and kilts, and their hair was cut short.

  One of them stepped out of the line and raised a thin hand. He was taller than his fellows, and old, with a white beard flowing from his wrinkled face, and a long fur-trimmed cloak wrapped his gaunt body. There was something in his deep-set blue eyes which made Carl like him even at first glance.

  “You may not come in here,” said the old man. “It is forbidden.”

  “By our own tribes, not by your laws,” said Carl. “And even our own laws let a man save his life. There are foemen from the north hunting us. If we go out now, they will kill us.”

  “Go!” cried a witch-man. His voice trembled. “We dare not have anything to do with the wars of the tribes.”